Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Writers Between the Covers: The Scandalous Romantic Lives of Legendary Literary Casanovas, Coquettes, and Cads by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon

What happened off the page was often a lot spicier than what was written on it...

Why did Norman Mailer stab his second wife at a party? Who was Edith Wharton’s secret transatlantic lover? What motivated Anaïs Nin to become a bigamist?

Writers Between the Covers rips the sheets off these and other real-life love stories of the literati—some with fairy tale endings and others that resulted in break-ups, breakdowns, and brawls. Among the writers laid bare are Agatha Christie, who sparked the largest-ever manhunt in England as her marriage fell apart; Arthur Miller, whose jaw-dropping pairing with Marilyn Monroe proved that opposites attract, at least initially; and T.S. Eliot, who slept in a deckchair on his disastrous honeymoon.

Virginia Woolf once said: “Every secret of a writer’s soul,
every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in
his works.” Well, one might argue, it’s written even larger in their lives.
Most fans of fiction remember what Emma Bovary got up to in that carriage, or
what drunken debauchery Hemingway’s characters took part in. But did you ever
wonder where the creators behind these great works of fiction got their
inspiration?

Wonder no more. Finally, we know exactly what happened to
Agatha Christie during her mysterious disappearance in 1926, which prompted a
nationwide manhunt. We have the answers to questions like: Why did Marilyn
Monroe compare meeting Arthur Miller to “running into a tree”? Did Norman
Mailer really stab his second wife at an all-night party? (And why the heck did
she go back to him, however briefly?) Was Zelda Fitzgerald as crazy as literary
legend would have you believe? These are just a few of the questions that get
answered in this unputdownable volume of literary scandals and chagrins. The
writers and stories are broken down into seven sections, each highlighting the
scandalous love lives behind the writers in question, and punctuated by short
sidebars with fun factoids about each topic.

Lord Byron was the closest thing to a rock star his age had
seen. Dubbed “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know” by one conquest, with all his
bed-hopping and carousing, one might wonder how he had time to write at all.
The Times called him “the most remarkable Englishman of his generation,” but it
wasn’t just his literary prowess that was remarkable. He was the classic “love
‘em and leave ‘em” lothario, quickly getting bored and moving on to his next
conquest. After an ill-fated marriage, rumors of incest (with a half-sister)
and homosexuality (a fondness for young boys) began to surface, making him
persona-non-grata in London. He fled to Europe, never to return again.

Never was the battle of the sexes more clearly illustrated
than with the long-standing relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de
Beauvoir. The woman who once declared that “love for the woman is total
abdication for the benefit of a master” decided to rewrite the rules when it
came to her love life. Considering herself a feminist and feeling that
marriage, for a woman, was “drawing the short straw,” she repeatedly turned
down Sartre’s marriage proposals in favor of a more open relationship. They
would remain devoted to each other but were also free to see other people, with
the caveat that they would tell each other everything, never lie, and share
every detail of their extracurricular activities.

This arrangement fostered a competitive environment between
the two intellectuals when they both began vying for the affections of one of
de Beauvoir’s young female students: “No matter how progressive de Beauvoir
thought herself when it came to relationships, the green-eyed monster once
again had her in its grip when faced with Sartre’s unabated desire for another
woman. Working through her conflicted feelings, she used the love triangle as
the basis for her first novel, SHE CAME TO STAY.” Despite their unorthodox
situation, she remained devoted to Sartre until his death.

But it’s not all predilections and wanton sexuality. Many
writers used their art as a means of working out the difficulties they could
not in life. Tennessee Williams believed his writing was an absolute necessity,
claiming “his craft was his way of coping with, and keeping in check, his vast
emotional issues. According to Gore Vidal, the playwright ‘could not possess
his own life until he had written about it.’” So much so that he devoted most
of his memoir to his personal life instead of his professional one, stating, “I
could devote this whole book to a discussion of the art of drama, but wouldn’t
that be a bore?” Through his plays, he challenged his audiences to open their
eyes to real issues like drugs, alcoholism, homosexuality, rape, sexuality in
general, and mental illness. Virginia Woolf fans owe a great debt to her
devoted husband, Leonard, who took tender care of his fragile wife, keeping her
from “heeding the call of the river Ouse” as long as he could.

More often than not, the stormiest of relationships produced
the best art. Just look at Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Flaubert, Mailer and the
Beats. Competition between writers (Hemingway and Gellhorn, Fitzgerald and
Zelda, Anais Nin and Henry Miller) often spurred on some of the greatest works
of literature. In some instances, as in the case of F. Scott and Zelda
Fitzgerald, this competition proved fatal. When his wife’s literary ambitions
threatened his own, Scott did whatever he could to quash her attempts: “He
became more enraged when he learned that Zelda had sent her novel to his
editor, who wanted to publish it. Along with demanding that half the royalties
be applied to debts he owed the publisher, Scott took a heavy hand in editing
the story, including reworking the portrayal of the fictional husband (based on
him) to make him more sympathetic.” One must never forget that often with great
talent comes great ego.

Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon, authors of NOVEL
DESTINATIONS: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s
Key West, have more than succeeded in bestowing readers with a compulsively
readable, juicy assemblage of scandalous true-life tales that sheds light on
some of the great works of literature, and the behavior that inspired it.
WRITERS BETWEEN THE COVERS is not just for English majors; it’s for anyone who
loves the written word, those who create them, and those who want to know the
hidden inspiration behind their favorite novels. (Isn’t that everyone?) It also
makes a terrific gift for that hard-to-buy-for book lover on your holiday list,
or an interesting change-of-pace selection for your book club, guaranteed to
give you hours of scintillating discussion.